The Late Bronze Age

Abstract

While examining the impact of metals over indigenous contexts, the author constructs a perspective about the Western End of the Iberian Peninsula in the Late Bronze Age. Amongst other things, it was possible to account for widespread bronze production, usually domestic, involving modest means of production and aimed at local and regional consumption. Some Mediterranean elements also occur within the same contexts, showing new shapes, functions, styles, materials, technologies, ritual practices, but Mediterranean metals play a minor role. Hybridization as cultural phenomenon is also possible. Some items of Mediterranean fi liation are also represented on Warrior Stelae, expressing the role played locally by the «outside» in the reinforcement of social inequalities. All these evidences seem to have been residual, circumscribed to the circle of the elites. So these elements neither expressed pro-Mediterranean acculturation, nor created a profound effect on the lives of the communities. KEY-WORDS: LATE BRONZE AGE; IBERIAN PENINSULA; MEDITERRANEAN; BRONZE; HYBRIDS; INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES Geo-Strategic and cultural placement During the transition from the 2 to the 1 millennium BC (XII-IX cent. cal. BC), the Western End of the Iberian Peninsula experienced a profound transformation marked by heterogeneous regional realities. In this dynamic, several communities played with different strategies, as a consequence of the specifi c cultural heritages shaping them —in fact the area studied does not show homogeneity during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. This resulted from contacts and stimuli assimilated (or rejected) from various sources, or even, and fundamentally, from choices, wishes, practices and actions underlying the materialities we fi nd; in conjunction with the materialities that we can only deduce, intuit, or guess. One of these actions was the handling of metal (here considered in its broadest sense as having an inclusive dimension with social meaning): procurement, production, consumption, circulation and accumulation. Therefore, this starting point values the indigenous contexts where we have found metal, alongside other exogenous factors which show interaction towards «others», independently of their causes and guidance. Amongst the external contacts and stimuli, involving a diverse range of elements and being combined at dif1. I would like to thank María Eugenia Aubet for the kind invitation to participate in the Seminar «Social interactions and trade in the antechamber of colonialism. The metals as leading actors» («Interacciones sociales y comercio en la antesala del colonialismo. Los metales como protagonistas»), held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, 28-29 March 2012, where I presented the talk now refl ected in this paper. REV ARQUEOLOGIA 21 (3R)6 orden.indd 13 26/09/13 08:04 INTERACCIÓN SOCIAL Y COMERCIO EN LA ANTESALA DEL COLONIALISMO 14 ferent paces and intensities, it is possible to identify the presence of the Atlantic, Continental and Mediterranean worlds meeting in the Western End of the Peninsula, during the last two centuries of the 2nd millennium BC and the beginning of the next. Several authors have acknowledged and characterized such contacts long ago, although from diverse paradigms, some more Eastern-focused and others more Atlantic-focused, and consequently we have an extensive scientifi c heritage on the subject today. As an example, concerning the Mediterranean, both Almagro Gorbea and Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez always insisted, regardless of their different perspectives, in the importance of the «proto-Orientalizing» and «pre-Phoenician» contacts between the Iberian Peninsula and Eastern and Central Mediterranean. The crucial role of Central Mediterranean, seeing Sardinia as an intermediary platform in the complex web interwoven between East and West in the Late Bronze Age, was exceptionally well defended by Lo Schiavo (1991; 2008) and Ruiz-Gálvez (1993) and previously approached in the PhD thesis of Jacques Briard in the 1960s (BRIARD, 1965: 237). Nevertheless, we should not forget that, in addition to Sardinia, «les solidarités méditerranéennes» (COFFYN, 1985) also include Sicily and mainland Italy, as stressed by the researcher from Bordeaux. This critical question of the relationship between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean recently received a thorough and extended debate (CELESTINO, ARMADA and RAFEL, 2008). The geographic placement makes it easy to classify the Western End of the Peninsula as «fi nis terrae» (where the land ends and the black and unknown Atlantic begins) or as periphery (for those who, travelling through the blue Mediterranean, reached the border to a limit, i.e., could not go further). However, both concepts —the periphery, the border— aren’t absolute but relational concepts that depend on where we focus. In the narrative here proposed, it is the position of the indigenous communities that will guide us. If we position ourselves in their place, we see that this area is also a key space from where you could depart, and where several different paths converged or crossed, having little of peripheral. On the contrary, one of the «centres» of the world was right here, at the right point —a right angle— between two of the most dynamic regions of the time: the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. In a certain way, we can say that (almost) all the paths leaded or passed through the Peninsular West (VILAÇA, 2007a). This unique geostrategic positioning should be associated to the richness, diversity and complementarity of critical resources. For example, copper ore can be found mainly in the South, but also in the Centre; tin in the Northwest, Beira Interior and the Spanish Extremadura; alluvial gold was exploited, for example, in the basins of the Tagus and Douro rivers (Figure 1). For local communities, the advantage was twofold, either granted by direct wealth produced by controlling ore rich territories, or because the desire for such richness attracted foreigners, outsiders, resulting in new contacts, new knowledge and, therefore, more power. It is clear that the mainland concentrated these resources and the sea was far, however, the ease of movement provided by large rivers (Douro, Vouga, Mondego, Tejo, Sado and Guadiana) shortened the distance. Some of them were navigable for several kilometres and had deep paleo-estuaries, working as an interface between the Atlantic coast and the hinterland. For that reason, it is necessary to account for the importance of mixed routes, maritime, fl uvial and by land (VILAÇA, 1995: 420; ARRUDA and VILAÇA, 2006: 32). In the socio-economic conjuncture of that time, the West End of the Peninsula, and particularly its central region (between the Douro and Tagus, alongside the Beira Interior, Beira Central and Extremadura) became one of the most dynamic regions, displaying local productions, exports, imports and imitations (KALB, 1980; COFFYN, 1985: 267; CARDOSO, 2004: 177-226, amongst others). This means that those communities, named «marginal» or «peripheral», played an active role in view of the stimuli radiating from the «centre» (RUIZ-GÁLVEZ, 1998: 272-273; 2005: 252). Their action was not only of a recipient or a refl ex, but acted as a counterpoint, proactively working within the sprawling network of trans-regional, pendular and bilateral movement paths between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean (VILAÇA, 2007a). This dynamic, somewhat «enclosed» by Coffyn in his «Groupe Lusitanien» (COFFYN, 1985: 267), is particularly expressive amongst the lead actors of this Seminar, the metals: double-looped palstaves; unifacial palstaves, socketed axes, «Porto de Mós Type» daggers; «Rocanes Type» scythes and rotary spits (Figure 2). To this group we can now add the tranchets, presenting a distribution that largely matches them, as will be discussed in 2.2. (VILAÇA, 2010). Unlike two decades ago, when the high density of fi nds lead to thinking that Portuguese Extremadura was the epicentre of metal production and circulation, the research at Beira Central and Interior softened that image. For that, it was decisive the development of some research projects focused in the Centre-mainland of the Portuguese territory, from the end of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s, which revealed valuable information on Late Bronze Age supported by radiocarbon dating. The ambitious excavation plans allowed characterizing the phases of occupation by recurring to a comprehensive strategy aimed at understanding each site and the lives of the communities. REV ARQUEOLOGIA 21 (3R)6 orden.indd 14 26/09/13 08:04 15 LATE BRONZE AGE: MEDITERRANEAN IMPACTS IN THE WESTERN END OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA (ACTIONS AND REACTIONS) FIGURE 1. Geo-Strategic placement of Iberian Peninsula’s West End. REV ARQUEOLOGIA 21 (3R)6 orden.indd 15 26/09/13 08:04 INTERACCIÓN SOCIAL Y COMERCIO EN LA ANTESALA DEL COLONIALISMO 16 FIGURE 2. Bronze artefacts of the «Groupe Lusitanien». 1) Vila Boa (Castro Daire) (fot. IPM); 2) Penedos Altos (Alvaiázere); 3, 4) Freixianda (Ourém); 5) Travasso (Mealhada); 6) Marzugueira (Alvaiázere) (fot. IPM). REV ARQUEOLOGIA 21 (3R)6 orden.indd 16 26/09/13 08:04 17 LATE BRONZE AGE: MEDITERRANEAN IMPACTS IN THE WESTERN END OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA (ACTIONS AND REACTIONS) It is usually in the mainland that we fi nd the most consistent proofs of autonomous productions, as shown by moulds and crucibles from several settlements (Figure 3). These indicate a full integration of metallurgists in local communities, interacting with regional powers, i.e. with the «agents of metal circulation» (VILAÇA, 1995: 420). It is also in the same regions that we can fi nd the biggest and most diverse group of original Mediterranean or Mediterranean inspired items (VILAÇA, 2008). In summary, this framework shows the existence of distant and multidirectional contacts fed by the dynamism of indigenous groups. Concerning metallurgy, data from excavations at settlements in Beira Inte